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President Obama's jobs panel missing in action

Many business leaders may feel discomfort in appearing to embrace the president. | AP Photo

“The Council has conducted 18 Listening and Action Sessions in communities around the country with businesses and local leaders,” said a White House official, who declined to be named. “The Council has plans for another half dozen Listening and Action Sessions in the coming months to continue to collect good ideas that have the potential for job creation and long-term competitiveness, with additional sessions potentially being added as well.”

Yet only three of the completed listening and action sessions took place this year, according to the council’s website. The White House aide also pointed to six other outreach events. However, none were meetings of the full board: They were attended by two or fewer council members. And at one session, the only council participant identified on the press release was Don Graves, the Treasury Department official who serves as the panel’s executive director.

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Even without a public meeting, the council has generated some awkward press for Obama. Last week, as his campaign stepped up its attack on Romney for allegedly outsourcing American jobs, The Huffington Post noted that several major companies whose executives serve on the council outsource products from China or other countries.

“Just because a company is on the Council doesn’t mean that we endorse its specific business decisions,” White House spokeswoman Amy Brundage said in response to the report.

There are other headaches as well.

Another executive on the council, Robert Wolf of UBS, works for a Swiss bank, reported by the Times’s Dealbook blog to be the next target of a Justice Department probe into the alleged manipulation of benchmark interest rates for mortgages and other loans. Wolf has also been pressured by other UBS executives to limit his appearances with Obama, the blog reported last month.

The seeming slowdown in Jobs Council activities may be partly due to the departure of two key staffers, Greg Nelson and John Oxtoby. The pair served as “the logistics backbone” of the council’s work, a former colleague said.

Nelson began work a couple of months ago as chief of staff to Gene Sperling, chairman of the National Economic Council, a White House official confirmed.

Oxtoby recently left the White House to attend Harvard Business School, the ex-colleague said. According to his LinkedIn page, he is presently a business development manager with Intel in China.

The portion of the White House website devoted to the Jobs Council shows its last meeting as October and lists Oxtoby and Nelson as still on board. What appears to be the council’s primary website, www.jobs-council.com, is run by General Electric, whose CEO, Immelt, serves as the panel’s chairman. Clicking on the site’s “contact” link directs a visitor to GE’s media relations department, which did not respond to a phone message and e-mail seeking comment for this story.

Under rules governing federal advisory boards, the Jobs Council is required to announce its meetings 15 days in advance. With no such announcement out right now, it appears the panel won’t convene this month.

Gathering a score of corporate CEOs in the vacation-heavy month of August also seems doubtful, pushing the next window for a council meeting into September or October, just as the reelection campaign reaches its peak.

Paul Volcker, the former federal reserve chairman who headed up the Jobs Council’s predecessor, the President’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board, indicated Tuesday he was not aware that the new panel has not convened publicly in half a year.

Volcker said his experience was that the agility of such boards is hampered by the rules governing their operation.

“That was certainly true,” Volcker told POLITICO after an event Tuesday highlighting the fiscal plight of state governments. “The restrictions on the way in which a board like that operates makes it very difficult to give informal advice.”

He latest comments about business has everyone wondering where this guy is coming from.

He should at least thank God for his MSM Super Wolf Pac press pals for keeping nonsense stories like Bain and the re-cylcled Tax return issue in the news while at the same time censoring any more stories on Holder and Fast n Furious and the scandel where someonoe in his White House released Classified information to the NYTimes to make his look tough.

Take a look at the photo. That will be Romney's Cabinet if elected. As President Romney, he will be head of the corporate board. It will mark a radically huge stride toward Korporate Amerika, a corporate plutocracy. Those CEO's won't be just advising and recommending, In a Romney administration they will be voting and dictating to Romney. They will be writing our laws submitted to and rubber-stamped by (a Republican) Congress. The CEO's love Romney. Besides expatriation, Romney wants to eliminate taxes on our international conglomerates' overseas money-making activities. If ever there was a formula for fast-tracking American jobs overseas, Romney's twin proposal is it. The current head of the Job's Council is General Electric's CEO Jeffrey Immelt. His corporation, he defensively acknowledged, didn't pay any corporate taxes last year, though G.E. made billions in profits. This phenomenon (G.E. is far from the only one) should be a major campaign issue this year. Americans are sick and tired of the army of lobbyists (afforded only by the richest) succeeding in getting unfair, self-serving laws passed that has produced a rigged game, one most Americans can't win.

Dear Roameo, many hard working Americans are sick and tired of you anti-American, anti-small business, anti-work cry babies, who blame their plight on people who actually work for a living. You want government to make a life for you, since you haven't the courage to try to do something for yourself. You are stuck on stupid, listening to the Chris Matthews of the liberal media, telling you that corporate America is holding you down and holding you hostage. Grow UP! You have rigged yourself. You will stay a loser until you wake up and man-up.

He should at least thank God for his MSM Super Wolf Pac press pals for keeping nonsense stories like Bain and the re-cylcled Tax return issue in the news

Republicans are equally responsible for keeping Romney's refusal to release several years of tax returns an issue of debate. Complain to them about it. What's wrong with being more forthcoming with the American voters, more transparent, when running for our highest office? Two years worth is not enough. Since shocking things were revealed in the only tax return Romney has made public -- a guy making $20+ million paying a lower tax rate than his secretary, tens of millions hidden in offshore tax havens, et cetera -- Romney is having his army of tax lawyers and accountants cook up something different for public consumption this time around. That's why he needed a tax extension this year, instead of getting them in on time. (He also wants to drag his feet and wait until September or October before revealing this year's tax returns.) We need the tax returns from 1999, 2000, 2001, and 2002 to help settle the dispute over the Bain years, when he was President (and sole owner) but claims he bears no responsibility for what the comapny did during those years. (Does he plan to say the same as President of our country?)

Romney has no reason to release any more tax returns. What he should do, is present his birth certificate, social security card and college transcripts, and then wait for our Kenyan president to do the same. Good bet if you searched on Romney's SS number, you'll find he's the only one who ever had THAT number. Our CIC can't make that same claim.

If you think paying more taxes than G.E. last year, which made billions in profits, is fair, then you are welcome to. I didn't and don't mind my tax dollars going to welfare checks for the struggling, but I get mad as a walloped hornet when I see my tax dollars going to billion-dollar welfare checks for corporations making billions. And like that hornet, I'm going to sting them. Your sense of justice and mine are clearly different.

Wake up. Your tax dollars are being spent on supporting people who do not qualify for either welfare, food-stamps, disability or social security. Those really in need suffer the most from fraud and greed. Then there are the sleaze-ball 'green' companies who have taken your tax dollars, and subsequently gone belly up. But didn;t waste time contributing to Bama's campaign. There are the CEO's you should be railing about.

Thats funny..havent even met in six months..but why should they? jobs are not any concern for this president just campaign and spend and focus on lies and blame!Our country is on its knees and four more will finish us off for sure..what have we done????

Jobs Panel to Obama: Mr. President, we think it might be a good idea if you laid off the job creators. If you want to create more jobs for Americans, stop calling the job creators "the greedy, rich, top1%." Stop threatening to confiscate more of their wealth. In short, they're not the bad guys.

He should at least thank God for his MSM Super Wolf Pac press pals for keeping nonsense stories like Bain and the re-cylcled Tax return issue in the news

Republicans are equally responsible for keeping Romney's refusal to release several years of tax returns an issue of debate

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It is the ECONOMY, STUPID. But if releasing tax forms will bring more jobs to the Obama economy, by all means I am with you. Except that if jobs are created as a result of Mitt Romney's tax returns being released, Obama should not take credit. Are you with me, dear liberal loon?

If you think paying more taxes than G.E. last year, which made billions in profits, is fair, then you are welcome to. I didn't and don't mind my tax dollars going to welfare checks for the struggling, but I get mad as a walloped hornet when I see my tax dollars going to billion-dollar welfare checks for corporations making billions. And like that hornet, I'm going to sting them. Your sense of justice and mine are clearly different.

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Well, I am in need to pay my credit card bill and since you're willing to give your money to help others, by all means send me a few thousands. Send me a message and I will give details of how you can send me your money.

No surprise here. Obama has declared war on business, and these businessmen don't want to be seen giving aid and comfort to the enemy.

Besides, Obama has never started a business, run a business, worked in a business, had to meet a payroll, or deal with the ridiculous rules that government puts on business. What does he have in common with people who have done all those things?

For that matter, what does Obama have in common with ANYONE who works for a living? He has never done anything other than demand government take money from people who have earned it and give it to people who have not.

And another point - the guy he put in charge, Immelt of GE, has spend the last four years outsourcing jobs to China just as fast as he can. In 2010 GE paid NO taxes. None. The guy Obama put in charge of tis group has led all businesses in doing the things that Obama is falsely accusing Romney of having done. No wonder they don't want to be associated with each other.

Dear President. You have spent $3.8 trillion dollars every year to run the government. In three and a half years that's almost $12 trillion dollars since January 2009, to which you have borrowed $6 Trillion from other countries. That's $12 Trillion dollars just to say that we have an 8.2% unemployment rate? Not even GW Bush had such a terrible unemployment rates!!!!

Now we know that people are more willing to get disability benefits than going back to work. This is what you meant when you said you would "fundamentally transform America," right?